The Safety Stickler: safer motorists steer clear of driving penalties

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Safety Stickler: the rule-keepers on UK roadsCredit:
Brent Wilson

29 January 2016 • 10:15am

Tim Gibson

Safe driving starts with stronger self-awareness. If you are honest with yourself about your driving habits and are familiar with your strengths and weaknesses behind the wheel, you can use the knowledge to improve your skills.To discover your driving personality, first take the quiz here. For more information on the Safety Stickler segment, read on.

Safety first! If ever there was a rule to live by, this is it. At least, according to this driving category.

Safety Sticklers share a passionate commitment to following rules – and they feel strongly that their diligence pays off in driving skill. An overwhelming 96 per cent believe they are safe drivers and 82 per cent (by far the highest category) are confident that they would pass their driving test if asked to retake it today.

A good way of enhancing road safety is to introduce more and stricter rules

This group is predominantly female and many have young children. They’re the group that is most likely to be driving with children in the car – which could account for their extra dedication to safety.

Safety Sticklers admit to the lowest number of driving misdemeanours, and only 16 per cent have received a speeding fine. A quarter say they will never speed, and 26 per cent claim they won’t ever break traffic laws.

Not surprisingly, these rule-followers are most in favour of stricter rules for road users. Forty-three per cent would like to see drivers retested every 10 years and many think people over 75s should not be allowed to drive at all.

Meanwhile, 70 per cent believe that drivers who accrue more than six penalty points should retake their test. They also favour lifetime bans for drink-drivers and stiffer penalties for those caught using a mobile phone behind the wheel.

82 per cent of Safety Sticklers are confident that they would pass their driving test if asked to retake it

The implications of this from a policy point of view are intriguing, as Dr Samantha Jamson from the University of Leeds observes. She helped design the Telegraph survey that led to the creation of the driving personalities and says the segmentation helps identify the best ways of encouraging safe driving.

“For drivers who take rules seriously a good way of enhancing road safety is to introduce more and stricter rules,” she says. “That will almost certainly result in better standards of driving among people in this group, even though it wouldn’t make any difference to people who are more likely to break traffic laws.”

No matter what type of driver you are, there is always room for improvement. Check out this article on fun ways to keep kids occupied in the car, curated just for you, and find out how you can help make Britain's roads safer.